What is endpoint detection and response?

Endpoint detection and response solutions, also known as endpoint threat detection and response solutions, should provide the following primary capabilities:

  • Cybersecurity incident detection;
  • Containment of incidents at endpoints;
  • Cybersecurity incident investigation;
  • Remediation guidance.

Being responsible for the most vulnerable part of defense contour, endpoint detection tools and response must rely on verified threat detection algorithms and use up-to-date comprehensive sources of indicators of compromise (IoCs) and contextual information.

Why do companies need endpoint detection and response solutions?

A threat level of malicious activity in distributed networks depends on the company industry, success rate and other less measurable factors. Nevertheless, all systems where digital data is shared between several devices can be classified as potentially vulnerable to penetration.

Threat actors will try to learn what data is processed on the workstation and get access to the machine resources. Endpoint detection and response software monitors the activity on endpoints and provides preventive measures, which is crucial for every company on the market regardless of size.

Some vendors offer managed endpoint detection and response services that inply the synergy of a technical and human element. Such services provide access to the dedicated team of threat researchers and engineers responsible for monitoring networks, analyzing incidents, and responding to security cases.

How do endpoint detection and response services hunt for threats?

Endpoint detection and response should combine reactive and proactive approaches, also called threat hunting. It is vital for improving response and remediation time for security issues of any severity level.

The amount of data generated by each device is too big to be processed by humans, and here endpoint detection and response software comes to the rescue. The endpoint detection and response solutions automatically monitor all the data and search for traces of malicious activity.

Meanwhile, cybersecurity teams seek to expand digital evidence databases and improve threat detection algorithms. This work may be done by the in-house team or endpoint detection and response vendors, which provide managed services.

Several types of digital traces of malicious activity can be tracked and collected by endpoint detection and response solutions or analytics:

  • Particular attack signatures – specific sequences and patterns in inbound network traffic;
  • Indicators of compromise – digital fingerprints indicating the successful attack on a target;
  • Alerts from all antivirus, endpoint detection and response and endpoint protection for business (BPP) solutions.

The most common tools used by endpoint detection and response tools for processing all available digital data are:

  • YARA rules – essential cybersecurity tool for identifying files that meet certain criteria.
  • IoCs-based detection – entire system check with up-to-date IoCs database on a scheduled basis.
  • Machine learning models for behavioral analysis that can help identify malicious activity in real time by detecting differences between users’ and intruders’ actions on the endpoint.

How endpoint detection and response solutions prevent cyber attacks

There are two primary sources of information for making decisions about legitimacy of the traffic:

  • Files created or processed on the endpoint;
  • Digital traces of user actions recorded by the system.

Endpoint detection and response solutions continuously monitor crucial components of each device: operating system registry, file system changes and kernel and memory management. It enables them to detect malicious activity and automatically respond to it with the predefined actions or promptly inform responsible information security officers.

Behavioral analysis is the other significant advantage of applicating big-data technologies in endpoint detection and response. Real-time comparison of typical user behavior examples with actual traffic helps endpoint detection and response solutions spot such security events as hidden tunnel usage, lateral movement, change of network topology, and technical protocol policy violations.

How EDR solutions respond to cybersecurity incidents

Managed endpoint detection and response services in the incident remediation part can be divided into two main categories:

  • Automatic reaction to typical events;
  • Non-trivial cases where manual remediation is required.

The process of automated response is more or less clear. The endpoint detection and response tool takes the required actions once it detects the discrepancy between predefined criteria and the currently running process. On average, the response in this case boils down to termination of the running process.

Things become more complicated when manual remediation is needed. The endpoint detection and response system may not have the prescribed procedures when attackers use previously unknown or unused techniques.

In such cases, the endpoint detection and response solution comes to the rescue, providing a security officer with a set of tools sufficient for attack investigation and remediation:

  • Control over application level of network communications;
  • Remote access to the host through a graphical user interface (GUI) or command line interface (CLI);
  • Collection of contextual information related to the suspicious activity;
  • Extraction of forensic data from the host.

Does Group-IB provide endpoint detection and response services and solutions?

The endpoint detection and response solution designed by Group-IB represents a component of the Managed Extended Detection and Response platform. Native interaction with Network Traffic Analysis and Malware Detonation Platform expands its potential and supplies the most actual security data gathered from all available sources.

The smart system of event classification and aggregation built into the Group-IB endpoint detection and response module helps significantly decrease the number of notifications generated by the system, which prevents alert fatigue. Consolidation of individual events related to the same attack empowers accumulation of all sensitive data in one incident and prevents bothering information security specialists without the real necessity of their participation in the remediation process.

The endpoint detection and response solution is powered by the Group-IB Threat Intelligence platform. It enables the constant updates of the IoCs, attack signatures and exploits databases for all integrated endpoints.

Cloud processing of events related to the provision of security measures makes it possible to conduct any search, extract or update task without affecting endpoint efficiency.

The managed endpoint detection and response services model helps remediate the cyber incident even when technology is helpless. Our security analytics are ready and fully equipped for defense challenges.

Our specialists have over 18 years of experience in incident response and cyber investigations, which allow them to take action in the shortest possible time.